Below the Radar Transcript
Episode 184: Born in Flames 鈥� with Lizzie Borden
Speakers: Debbie C., Am Johal, Lizzie Borden
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Debbie C 0:05
Hello, listeners. I'm Debbie C. with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. On this episode of Below the Radar, our host, Am Johal talks with Lizzie Borden, the award-winning independent filmmaker. Together they discuss Lizzie's expansive filmography, including her cult classic, Born in Flames, as well as her creative processes and some of the inspirations and experiences that have made her art into what it is today. We hope you enjoy the episode.
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Am Johal 0:47
Hi there, welcome to Below the Radar. Delighted that you could join us again this week. Really excited to have filmmaker and artist Lizzie Borden with us. Welcome, Lizzie.
Lizzie Borden 0:59
Thank you for inviting me.
Am Johal 1:01
Lizzie, wonder if we can begin with you introducing yourself a little bit?
Lizzie Borden 1:06
Yes, my name is Lizzie Borden, and it's exciting that you are involved with an art program as well as the film program because, you may know, but I started in the art world, and I never went to film school. So people sometimes think that I'm more of a film person, but actually, my films were inspired by the films and the artwork, the films made in art galleries, by artists. That was mostly my inspiration. And it was also very political: I was inspired by second wave feminism. But truly, it was seeing a lot of the artists like Joan Jonas making her videos, and Vito Acconci, and Richard Serra making small films, that made me think of film almost as a three-dimensional artwork, because so often, those kinds of films were displayed in galleries. And I worked on some of them, or with some of those artists in New York, at that very magical time in the late 70s and the 80s. Unfortunately, it's gone now, that whole community has gone
Am Johal 2:13
Mhm. As you were in that milieu of working with artists in collectives, collaboratively, and other ways, and experimental ways, wondering if you can speak a little bit about your experimental documentary film Regrouping?
Lizzie Borden 2:28
Well, actually, I've never worked in a collective. And the truth is Regrouping is being restored now. And it wasn't an actual documentary, I will call it an experimental documentary, because it did start out being a documentary, and then it got turned on its head in a way because the subjects I was trying to make a documentary about started to be at war with me. So I took the footage, and I messed with it. And I brought in a second group, and that group was a kind of commentary on the first group, and then I cut it in a very experimental way. And then I put it in a closet for literally decades, because the women who were in the first group were really angry at me, and it showed in three places when it first came out: at the Anthology, in Edinburgh, and I think one other place. And then when it came out of the closet, it showed in those three places again, and I'm actually going to New York at the end of May, for the restoration screening of it. And it was very, it's very strange, because in some ways, the technique of layering sound and the techniques of editing where you hear many, many things at the same time, and the way, it's edited with a lot of things happening really fast, and you're not really sure how the narrative goes, if there is one at all, sort of suggested the way that Born in Flames is edited, but with a difference in that there was an antagonistic relationship with the women in the first group in Regrouping, and that's why it's called Regrouping. It was actually a titled suggested by Vito Acconci. But in Born in Flames, I wanted to do something very different, because the women in regrouping were all white women, they were, I would say, middle-class women. And I wanted... at that point, I had been very, very politicized. And I wanted there to be the, I wanted to break out of that downtown, I would say white, middle-class, milieu. And so I wanted there to be Black women in it, I wanted there to be women not of that culture, and intersectional, even though that word had not been coined at that time. So, that was different, and I did not want there to be that kind of antagonism. So I wanted everyone to have her own voice simultaneously. So that's what I did. That's what made it very, very different. But there were similarities, although regrouping is much more experimental, and it's black and white. But it did come very much out of the art world, and the original women in it were all SVA, School of Visual Arts students. But yes, it started out as a documentary--I don't know that I could ever make a straight documentary without messing with it. [laughs]
Am Johal 5:28
And wondering at the time that you were making the film, the political, social context of the scene, then and also in terms of how it overlaps with artists working there, I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to the context that film came out of, that early mid-70s, New York context? And what were some of the ideas that were circulating in terms of the kind of form your own filmmaking and experimental practices took?
Lizzie Borden 5:56
Well, there were so many ideas at the same time, and some of them ended up inspiring, Born in Flames. I wanted to get away from a lot of the art world ideas, and I turned my back in a way on the art world, because it seems so programmatic because I was an art critic for a while, while I was trying to be a painter. And what happened was that the rules of the art world were too strict, and it was very much Clement Greenberg. And I found that I knew too much about art. And that interfered with me being a painter, because I felt it'd all been done before. And the rules of the picture plane and all of that stuff. I had studied too much to be a painter. And I knew everybody because I was so, so, so, young, when I was writing. I was allowed to meet everybody. I mean, it was such a heady experience. I mean, as I was at those tables at Max's Kansas City, meeting Robert Smithson and, you know, I knew Richard Serra. I mean, all of these people while they were having these knockout, drag out arguments. And it was extraordinary, but I just felt that I was, I needed to be less, I needed to be, in a way ignorant to paint. I needed, I was too much in my head. I can't even read what I wrote back then, I don't understand that language anymore. But there were groups, like, art and language, that were reading a lot of Marxist and Leninist texts. And Kathryn Bigelow was much more involved with them than I was, you know, I wrote a little bit for those magazines, but I don't even understand what that means anymore. But a key idea from those groups was what inspired Born in Flames, because I kept being caught on the idea of the Woman Question in the Marxist texts, like, well, what is the Woman Question? Does it mean that for any kind of, let's say, revolution, the women would be like, "Oh, let's deal with the women later." And it was at the time where I also was very distressed by the fact that a lot of the women who I wrote about, and was interested in, in the art world, were women like Joan Jonas and Yvonne Rainer, and Trisha Brown, and Hannah Wilkie. And some of the women did work with their naked bodies. And Carolee Schneemann, for example. But they weren't as respected as the men, these macho men who did big sculptures, or--I know a lot of women who did more traditional artwork, but they weren't making as much money. And, of course, still valid, you know, valid argument that women are not as represented in museums, although that has changed, to a large degree. But then, it was a huge disparity. So, what happened was that, that was... second degree feminism really radicalized me in that respect. And being in New York, the politics of being in New York, with New York to the mayor--no, the country to the mayor, drop dead, with no social services, and feeling really beleaguered that way. As a woman, you know, politically in the country, feeling as if the whiteness and the middle-classness of it had to be addressed, but also thinking that if women were to be pushed to the side, who would be most vulnerable? Obviously, black women, those on a gender spectrum, who would be most vulnerable. So I thought, those are not the women who I see in the circle below, let's say, 14th Street or 23rd Street. So I had to search for the women who would be part of that. And so, that was the premise for Born in Flames, after social cultural revolution. I didn't make it a social, cultural, kind of, not an extreme revolution, because I felt like that couldn't happen in a big capitalist country. But those ideas were some of the ideas downtown. But I was never in a collective. I mean, some of Regrouping explored the idea of, like, a consciousness-raising group, as opposed to a group that came together to accomplish something. Like, something actual and real and specific. And comparing those ideas, a group in their 20s, and a group in their 30s. Actually, the group in the 30s, one of the women was Barbara Kruger, that was bizarre, that was before she was famous. So, it was really an interesting time, because everyone was kind of just around, just becoming who they were. But I decided not to go to film school because I didn't want to know anything, and I don't think Born in Flames could have existed had I gone to film school, because any teacher would have said, "Wait, you're starting the film. It's not a documentary, you don't know where it's going, you're just going to go until it becomes something?" And that's what I did, and I did that for five years until it did become something. I didn't even know who the characters were going to be. I didn't know if there was going to be a narrative, and what the narrative was going to be. So, it was blind faith that I would discover something by the end, and I did. But I don't know how I did. And it only ended because Rick Gregor from the Berlin Film Festival said, "Well, if you finish by February," that was five years in, it'll be in the festival. And I thought, "Oh, my God, I don't have Asian women. I don't have Latinas." I had like maybe one of each, in minor roles. But then I thought, well, there's a language problem there, and it will take me years, so I might as well just finish. There were so many different kinds of ideas, but a lot of them were very contradictory. For example, Carl Andre, was very big in the social organizing, demonstrating against museums, even for the admission of women. Yet, that was that thing with Ana Mendieta. That's something I don't know that I'll be able to do it. I've been wanting to make a series about Ana Mendieta for years, but there's so many now that I may not be the first to get there. You know, I was the first years ago, but nobody would do it, and now there are more famous people trying to do that story. So, there were so many ideas, but I stopped going to galleries for a while when I started making films. But there were a lot of films in the art world, there were just so many films that people were seeing, but what a lot of the young male filmmakers were caught up with were trying to be, like, the new wave at that time. And there were some women downtown, who were not that, like Vivienne Dick or they were political in their way because she was from Ireland, of course she was political. So, they were just so, and then of course, there was the whole Andy Warhol thing. I never met him, I never knew them, and Basquiat was a little later, Basquiat was the early 90s. Everything changed with Basquiat, and the money--well, Julian Schnabel, of course, and Keith Haring and... AIDS changed everything. So, there was a period of time where, we were actually the first gentrifiers. We didn't think of ourselves that way. You know, we all had lofts. For under $400 a month. People had apartments in the lower Eastside for $80 a month. Some people were smart, and they bought them, and they're now landlords. [laughs] They were smart. I wasn't.
Am Johal 13:38
I was gonna ask you, you know, Born in Flames is just such a legendary underground film, and in terms of its reception at the time when it came out in 1983, it's just so far-reaching in terms of the questions that delves into. When you think about the reception back when it came out to it right now, how do you see it, reception? Or how have the conversations changed in the way they're brought back in terms of viewing the film?
Lizzie Borden 14:09
You know, it's so interesting. It's the same film, and as that rolls through time, the conversations change. And that's what interests me because, unfortunately, COVID has made it really difficult for me to see how those change, because I'm unable to actually go to Q&As, and see how younger generations perceive it. Because the last time I was able to do that was around Occupy Wall Street, and what I noticed was the very different reactions of young men who could finally relate to the film because when it first came out, it was just a little scrappy, Do-It-Yourself indie. I mean, the first time I actually saw it in public was at the Franklin Furnace with a pulldown screen, with a bunch of folding chairs, and people seeing it that way. There was no big deal. I mean, yes, it got, there was an article in The New York Times about railing against, because it had gotten a grant that D.A. Pennebaker had helped me get, where it said, "This is how we spend our public money? What a shame, what a terrible movie, we should not be wasting our money on films like this," right? But then, also, critics were also blaming me for retreading politics. In other words, the Black Panther kind of stuff, or Baader Meinhof, that was archaic, and that, why was I doing that? And that was not at all my intention. With the women bearing arms, it's much more about asking questions: is this valid? I was not promoting anything, I was much more asking a series of questions, which I think people got later on. It was really a lot more about a more current discussion of, how do you change things systematically? So, I think people got that. And then the other thing, too, is the discussion over time. Which one thing that has changed, I mean, first of all, I never imagined that Born in Flames would be relevant decades afterwards, I thought a lot of the issues involving women, especially, would be solved, you know? That equal pay, you know, choice, all these things, but oh, my God, have things gone backward in this country. It's shocking. But the one thing that has changed for the good is discussions around gender. So, I think that young people have been able to see some of the characters in the film, and they've been able to relate to them, to the fact that their look, they look somewhere borderline, some of them. And that is more, that's more like people look today, some of them. They're not "actor," they're not Hollywood-looking. And I do think that a few of them would have had transitioned, if that had been available to them, back in the day. But I think that some of the ideas in it are more appropriate for today than back then. And when it first came out, I don't think guys could relate to it at all. It was just some feminist propaganda that they just brushed off. And the politics of it just seemed to be retrograde to the 60s, and I wasn't even thinking about the 60s. I was, of course, of course everyone thought about Baader Meinhof. You know, of course, no one thinks about those things, because you only think about guerrilla warfare as it has existed in the past. In fact, the first title I was thinking of are Born in Flames was May Guerill茅re after Monique Wittig, but Vivienne Dick called one of her movies, Guerill茅re Talks. And they also thought people would mispronounce it as "gorilla." And I had asked Mayo Thompson to write a song for the film. It was called Born in flames. And I just love the title Born in Flames, so I called the whole film Born in Flames.
Am Johal 18:03
Lizzie, there's so much going on in the film. You know, first of all, just the premise of imagining a social democratic revolution happening, it engages in questions of feminism and futurity. It's also a kind of portrait of New York, in a particular time, as a setting the--urban decay, renewal, but there's also, you know, any questions of aesthetics and politics when they're put together. There's a political potency to your film that drives it, that's really quite energetic, and very rare to find in what would be arthouse films, or in traditional, political agitprop. It's something very unique to the film, it's hard not to get caught up in its sense of urgency when watching it for the first time. I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to, because I know there'll be university students in film and art listening to this interview, what was the form of your creative process? And of course, the editing process, as you mentioned, was several years, I can't remember, was it five or six years? But there was a particular, your visual arts background certainly helped you as opposed to a traditional filmmaking background, and I think that's really fascinating, because it took all of those pieces to make it come together in the beautiful way it was.
Lizzie Borden 19:20
Thank you for that. Well, here's the thing is, you can have an idea out of anger and passion, but you can't stay angry for six years. The other thing is that, when you don't have money, you have time, because I could only shoot when I had a couple hundred dollars. But I had an editing machine, an old, it's called a Steenbeck. In the old days, you actually cut the film, and you taped it together. And I like the idea of speed, and speed is urgency. And I had this thing about long, boring art films. I didn't like them. At that point, I was not even a, I didn't even understand how to like a film like Jeanne Dielman, although I've come to see it as, it's one of my favorite films now, but I didn't like... maybe because it was too many times at the old Anthology, where they used to have those seats where you feel like you're in your own little space pod. It's, like, black velvet on both sides, and I always fell asleep in five minutes. But I wanted to do something that created a sense of pushing forward, of urgency, and the urgency, you have to do something. So because I could only edit in between shoots, I kept making it faster, faster, faster. So it's the technique of moving it faster, and going over the same stuff over and over, and shooting stuff that I ended up shooting on reversal, so I could throw out what I didn't want. And I ended up throwing out so much. And then sometimes using, or shooting stuff that didn't turn out, but I had eight frames that did. So I would use, "Oh, well, it wasn't a total waste, I have eight frames." So I would throw that in. So I would be able to create a sense of urgency by how I edited it. And editing is like writing. So, instead of having a script beforehand, I created a script through the editing. And editing was my favorite thing, because I could do that by myself. The truth is, the actual shooting process was exhausting. You know, it was just me, I had either an old Cadillac or Lincoln Continental with a fake permit. In those days, they didn't really check. It was a fake permit, I parked in the front of my loft, kept it there. On a shooting day, I'd pick everybody up, I'd drop everybody off. Those were exhausting days, I ended up buying one of those old cameras that had, like, rabbit ears on top ... It was just exhausting, maybe 12 people, I'd be ferrying them around dropping them off. But editing was just me, and it would just be going over things. And when I got bored, I would cut out more, and I got bored, I cut out more. And then I would do it in layers. So it'd be like, "Oh, I hear this too--I don't want anyone to listen to long, boring speeches, that'll put them to sleep. So let me put something behind it. So if they get bored listening to that, they can listen to something." It was just really about, I don't care if you listen to anything in this film, as long as you come up wanting to do something. So, that was the aesthetic of it, was just, do something that argue about it. You know, are you about it at the end. Because the end of the movie is not the end of the movie, the end of the movie is, well what happens afterwards? Everyone gets arrested, obviously, is that good, or is that bad? You can say it's a terrible thing. That's fine, that is a terrible thing. You shouldn't do what they did, necessarily, it's not a solution. And in fact, these days, which is what makes it not of this moment, is you wouldn't have to do that Rube Goldberg thing, because everyone has a cellphone. It would take like 20 seconds on a cellphone to do that whole movie. And so, it was really about the power of editing and time. And that's the thing I always, like, what I think the incredible thing for students now is, not the fact that people can make their own film on an iPhone, because you know, a film like Tangerine, which I love, right? It wasn't that cheap, as people say, you know, or Kathryn Bigelow did an amazing promo for shooting on an iPhone. But she had actors, and she had lights, and she had horses, and she had smoke machines. It's just a camera, right? But when I'm talking about the iPhone as politically, what strikes me about the iPhone, is the woman in the back of the car, who really was cool enough to shoot her husband, partner, boyfriend being shot by a cop and being able to get that onto the internet. She was cool enough to record it, and that was like, oh my god, that is the power. That's the power of having this tool that you can get out. You know, these people who--or George Floyd. I mean, it's like, these things that are recorded, they're recorded. Those are the extraordinary iPhone films, not the narratives that people can do. So, those are the things that changed the world. I think they are powerful tools, in terms of political statements. But I'm just vamping now, so sorry about that. I think I said too much.
Am Johal 24:41
It's so wonderful to hear those stories, though. So important for, especially younger filmmakers and artists, to hear about the process itself. You know, another question I wanted to ask you was about your film, Working Girls, also far-reaching in terms of its politics and how it lands down today. It might have been ahead of its time in the moment that was made, but wondering where that project started for you.
Lizzie Borden 25:06
Well, that started during the Born in Flames time. And that actually was restored by Criterion recently. There's one shot in Born in Flames that, where you can see the origin of Working Girls. Going back to how Born in Flames came together, it's very hard when you're putting a film together over years, like, how do you make the whole film hang together? How do you create a narrative when it's kind of experimental, when you need to tell a story, and yet at the same time, you don't have just a linear narrative line, you don't have a script? One of the ways I did it was by creating sequences using the song Born in Flames, of montages of women's work. That was one of the things I did in order to pull the film together. And in one of those montages, there's a shot of a condom going over a man's erect penis. So, both of the films, Born in Flames and Working Girls, deal with labour. And in Born in Flames, one of the issues was women doing "men's work." In other words, construction work, and why shouldn't women do construction work? But some of the montages had to do with women doing "women's work:" dealing with the condom, women cutting hair, women serving coffee, all the things that are traditionally seen as "women's work." But one of the things that, of course, I was concerned about during the five years I was making Born in Flames was work, how do people work? How do people make their artwork? And of course, I became aware, during that period of time downtown, of women in the sex industries. And the first way I was aware of it was strippers, because I had friends like Cookie Mueller, who stripped in downtown places, everyone went to see Cookie strip, because it was like a friendly neighborhood place. So everybody went for a beer, and watched Cookie strip, it was like no big deal for her. It was just fun. So that was the first introduction to the sex industry. And there were some porn performers like Annie Sprinkle, who would do performances, you know, with the speculum, and her cervix and all of that stuff. Nudity, there was a lot of nudity in art. And then I found out that there were women downtown, who were making some money, working at one very specific brothel, and they were women who are now very famous women. I mean, you would be shocked if you knew who they were. And, so, I thought, "This is really interesting," because I've always been obsessed with the idea of choice, freedom of choice. And especially important now, because it's being threatened in the United States so radically, I'm angry all over again. So that's what I wanted to do, and I also wanted to do it in a way that was very focused, because work and grow, took place in one long day, and Born in Flames was all over the place. So, I wanted something very, very focused. But it was similar in the sense that it focused on work. It was about sexuality, but it was much more about labour than sexuality. Its start was, from Born in Flames, and just the question, what is that choice? I mean, would you rather spend eight hours a day renting your body, or 40 hours a week in a job that you don't like? Especially if you're an artist, if you go to art school, what are your options afterwards? They're very limited, actually. You know, either you become a teacher, and there are very few teaching jobs. And these days, especially, teachers are really underpaid, unless your tenure. I mean, it's pathetic how little teachers make. Or, if you become a successful artist, and I know very successful artists, and it's phenomenal. But back then, there were a lot of struggling artists, and a lot of them worked, helping people fix up their lofts. They were handy that way. But if you go and you get a fine arts degree, it's very, very difficult to get a job. And so, everybody was obsessed with, "Well, what do you do for work?" And so that's, it came out of that, it was that question. But the question of sex work, which I'm now back into, I have a book coming out in October. It's not actually my book, I edited the book. And it's been a project that I've been working on now for over a decade. It's stories by strippers. They're actually memoir stories, beautiful, amazing stories, about their own work, and lives, and interviews with them. There's a story by Kathy Acker that was previously unpublished, and by Chris Kraus, women like that, and there are stories by women who are currently still working, they're stripping, and they're also doing full-service sex work. And I hope that it can be used with showings of Working Girls, for benefits for sex workers, and to help fight for decriminalization everywhere, if possible. But it was really great to be back in contact with sex workers, because I hadn't been, there was a long gap. It was really important. But it was really a question, at that point, I think of trying to dig deeper into one area. Born in Glames is very political, but I felt that Working Girls was political in its own way, just by showing something where, again, people had to ask questions. I really wanted to make films at that moment, and still do, I want to make films where people ask questions, I'm still trying to make films that like, now I'm trying to make a film about an abortionist, and it's really just hard to set up, because it's very difficult to get the money for it. It's a period piece, and it's hard. I don't know why can't just make a straight narrative. [laughs]
Am Johal 31:01
I was gonna ask you: later on, as you worked on some other films that were more, coming out of more traditional filmmaking, you've commented publicly on the ways that they were re-edited. And even though your name is on them, you don't think of them as your own films. And I'm wondering if you can just speak to a little bit of coming out of the art world, making films in your own Do-It-Yourself way, and having your own methods, and walking into a more traditional film financing, and the context, what that did to your creative process in a way because clearly, the commercial interests in that type of filmmaking is very different, the editing, and control of productions and wondering if you can speak to that a little bit.
Lizzie Borden 31:49
Yes, I was very innocent. Because in the three films, in Regrouping, Born in Flames, and Working Girls, I worked on them until they were ready to be done. With Regrouping, it wasn't turning out, and then I made it turn out. I mean, I kind of had to, I felt, this is just a bizarre, interesting thing that was only interesting to artists is that I had the financing, my big financing was from Sol Lewitt. $3,000, all of $3,000, and I felt I had to finish it, because Sol gave me $3,000. And so I finished it, and I felt that I was the studio. And even if these women were angry at me, I had to finish it, and... sadly enough, by the time it's restored, Sol is no longer with us. And he was such a kind kind, kind, man, Aand that was sad. But I worked on it until it was done. Born in Flames took five years, Working Girls took as long as it took; I kept the brothel set up in my loft until it was done. And then I stepped into a Harvey Weinstein situation. I didn't know that it was a Harvey Weinstein situation until it was, and it was so recut. There were flashbacks put in by a filmmaker named Kit Carson against my will. And Harvey threatened that he would ruin my career if I took my name off of it. And yet he did anyway, because then I had the reputation of being difficult. So, the second thing I did, I was made to sign one of those things, like a, is it, what, an NDA or something?
Am Johal 33:25
Yeah, yeah.
Lizzie Borden 33:26
Before I even went on, because I was "difficult," and because I thought, well, how bad could this be? And then the same thing happened: this guy completely cut it up, he completely put on his own music score, he completely... he completely wrecked it. And it was a three-part thing. Monika Treut did another, and he semi-did it to her because he didn't have her footage. And then we called the filmmaker in China and said, "Do not send this guy your footage. edit it, lock it, do everything in China, ad don't let him touch it. Because he will edit. He will do all that." And by that point, I was so rattled by everything I thought, why am I being called difficult? And then it was only after #MeToo, when I found out that Sean Young, who was not my choice, that was Harvey's choice. She was Harvey's choice. She's a #MeToo survivor, and I didn't know that, and I just thought it was me. So I was, I had PTSD for a long, long time, and I realized that I really am an independent filmmaker, and that if you don't have final cut, then you're screwed. And there are other situations, I recently had the privilege of meeting Shaun Baker. I did a Q&A with him at the DGA. And he told me that on Florida Project, he didn't have final cut, but he really trusted his producers. He knew and trusted his producers, so it was as good as having final cut. Because if you don't, if you're antagonistic to them, it isn't your vision, and I realized my big mistake, and this is advice to anyone listening is, I didn't have a $500,000 project, I still don't, I don't have something I could do for $500,000, because I would have done it in the last three decades, but I also don't have this burning desire to just make a film to make a film. I think there's enough stuff out there. If I feel like making a film, it's something... You know, I feel this, that with all those 80s films, I feel like I really, really want to see how an audience, I'm going to interact with an audience, learn something about them, from them. They don't really fill their mind, I feel there are things in the world, I want to learn about the audiences from the film, they're my way of, because I'm very shy. You know, I'm not a political person, I don't go out and speak about, let's say, choice. I don't remember all the facts. I don't remember percentages of people, and I don't know how to retain that. But I do know how to speak passionately about politics through a film. But I don't know how to speak about politics on, just as politics. So if I do something, I want to be able to really believe in it and interact about it. But I don't want to just make a simple narrative, I don't know, there are other people who do that better. But I do feel that if someone has a story to tell, and I think so many films are beautiful stories to tell that from a person's own experience. But try to have final cut, try to be an auteur, and then it's one's own. Because I did a little bit of junky television, and that was really not to my liking either. I don't know that I love the process of just being out there and doing it that much. I've been writing constantly, most things have not been made, but I keep raiding my closet. You know, I've written some plays, and I keep trying to find something and revisit things, to see if they still mean something to me. Because I just think there just far too many things out there. You know, I don't know if you have that problem, but if you look at Netflix, you spend two hours deciding what to watch, even Criterion and it's like, oh my god, which classic do I look at now? And then after two hours, it's like you've seen the movie, just go to sleep?
Am Johal 37:18
Lizzie, I was gonna ask you, you mentioned the books that you're editing. What other projects do you have under development or you're thinking about doing?
Lizzie Borden 37:26
Well, it's this film that I've been wanting to do, it's called Rialto, we're in casting now. It's a film set in 1953 called Rialto, and it's about a mysterious woman who runs a movie theater called the Rialto, and she shows foreign films that have been banned, actually, by the Legion of Decency. She doesn't know they're banned, but they aren and they truly were banned films like Miracle in Milan. The Catholic Church thought they were, they were on a list along with films that Ingrid Bergman's starred in, because she was having an affair with a married Catholic, primary Catholic director, Rossellini. And she's mysterious, we don't know what she does at the beginning. And the local priest, this is in Rhode Island, the local priest just starts to rail against her for showing these films. And this kid comes back from Korea very, very damaged, and his brother's running for office, and for Senator, it's kind of like the equivalent of the Kennedys, but Republican. And he falls madly in love with her, and he starts to see these weird happenings in the theatre. You know, these women come, stay overnight at this rooming house that he's staying in, because he doesn't want to stay at home. And he finds out that she's running a secret abortion clinic in the basement, but it all kind of blows up. But the film is really about, when one freedom goes, they all go. But it's not just about, the freedom to have an abortion. We don't really see the abortions, but we see the women who come, and it's not really, it's not didactic at all. We just see through the women who come, why they need these abortions. And the real argument is about the films that one is allowed to see, because you see pieces of these movies and you go, why is a film like Miracle in Milan not allowed to be seen? It's a beautiful movie. And you start to understand, it's like what's happening today with these books being stripped from libraries. So for me, it's really about choice, and that's the most horrific thing happening in this culture today. I've had to strip it down from, at one point Susan Sarandon was involved with it, but then what happened was just so sad We were flying in to meet with her for final script meetings, this is how long I've been trying to make it, on the day of 9/11. We were the last plane to land, and we see the buildings go down, and of course the meetings are canceled. Then, of course, everything was Freedom Fries. It was not the right time to do it. So, we had to then get the budget way down, kinda it more stylized like, a "why" kind of movie. So yeah, we're casting it now, but it's, you know, it's always hard to get the right cast that allows for the budget. That's another project, I'm just hoping that happens. There are projects, sort of a little hard to talk about them because, you know, and then somebody says, "Well, how such and such going?" and you go, "Well, that didn't happen!" [laughs]
Am Johal 40:21
Lizzie, I was gonna ask you, for art and film students like we have in 丁香园AV and in Vancouver, who are graduating, wanting to make their own mark, do their own work in their own way and not follow it a traditional path. What would be your advice to young people coming out of school to hold to their vision and their own unique methods of filmmaking?
Lizzie Borden 40:45
This is the best time ever to do that. Because there are so many streamers, looking for what they call, I hate this word, "content." And because short films are now kind of in vogue, when I was coming through there, of short films, that were only like three short film festivals, and then they died. But now, short films are cool, a lot of people are showing them. It's to just be, do something that's unique to one's own experience, and collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. Like, find your strength, team up with people. And because you have so many different media to work with, the hardest thing of all, is post-production. That's the most expensive thing, and to use school, not to necessarily just make a calling card. You know, really, actually figure out what you want to do. The hardest part of COVID has been, as far as it comes to TV, because I know a lot of people who wanted to do episodic TV and all that, is the absence of the shadowing program, because that's the way a lot of people got into television. I think it may start back up, so the real question is, do you want to be, like, an independent filmmaker, in which case, one can do that. And I think, probably in Canada, it's probably easier. There may be more government money for it. I'm thinking of Sarah Polley, I think was a wonderful filmmaker. And there may be more, or Patricia Rozema, I like, thinking older filmmakers who somehow managed to work in the million, million and a half dollar range, as a bigger budget, but even smaller budget, Atom Egoyan, and it's like, I'm thinking, the people I would know. But there are ways of making films that are the higher-end, starting with a very personal, personal film. And the hardest thing, obviously, is the post-production, and the mixing and all of that, but as personal as one can make it. And the other way, let me ask you a question. Do you happen to know whether people are interested in making more independent stuff? Because in the United States, there are two, I would say there's NYU, and there's USC. It breaks down between those two, and NYU graduates are much more about personal stuff, let's call it best Spike Lee school, Jim Jarmusch school. And USC, let's call it the Spielberg school. And one is sort of more indie, even though Spike is commercial, too. And Spielberg, I think wants to be more indie, but he's really commercial. But how would you categorize the students where you are?
Am Johal 43:26
We're in, both 丁香园AV and Concordia in Montreal, I would definitely say you're on the independent, auteur filmmaking, but also in the visual arts for people who are working in film or video, there's certainly an overlap in those areas. So certainly, there's so many private film schools around that are producing graduates who are working in the industry, and the industry's, you know, big in a place like Vancouver. But the kind of program that we have is, which is more interdisciplinary in nature, the students are looking at more of an indie career.
Lizzie Borden 43:58
What's so interesting about the connection with an art school is I'm thinking of artists like Ericka Beckman, who makes films in an art gallery context. And I think that's more and more, installations are great, the art world connection, and especially for people of colour, there's a renaissance, I think the best art right now are artists of colour, and that's amazing to me, is both in the world of painting, and I think there are so many opportunities to try to do things in an actual, physical space as a kind of installation. I was asking about industry because I think the best way to get into the industry with lower-budget film is to go genre. I was never interested in genre, but I think if people are, the best thing is a horror film. If you make a horror film, for alow budget, that's the easiest thing to sell. It used to be romantic comedies, but right now, oh, just scare the hell out of them! [laughs] As you know, look, it started with the Blair Witch Project, but it's still very, very au courant. But I do think that, Columbia University has a great art film project. So, I think I'm comparing your program more with them. And it's a great program, because it has, great big art school, with great art spaces available. And what's great is the fact that there's a mix together, but I think my feeling is just make something that's super personal. And the festival route is still a great, great route. South by Southwest, for example. It's just, pick the festival that you think is right for your film, and then it's still critics, it's still somebody to see it, it's still about that, like, how do you get it? How do you get it known? I mean, look, Toronto Film Festival, great, it's just, find the appropriate festivals. And these days, I've heard some of the short film festivals actually pay the filmmakers, which is unheard of. In the old days, they never did. So, but taking that financial thing out, I think it's just, finish your film, finish it, show it to people, this is the best opportunity where you have... The other thing to do is somehow stay in school for an extra year, in order to make a film. Not a bad idea, you know, stay as long as you can.
Am Johal 44:11
Get access to the facilities. Lizzie, is there anything you'd like to add?
Lizzie Borden 45:48
No, not really, unless you have more questions. I'm happy to answer your questions, if you have any more.
Am Johal 46:00
Oh, good. Well, I guess the question would be, when can we get you up to Vancouver? Since you've never been here, I'm going to have to talk to some people at the school, and figure out a way to screen your films, and have you up here. Just wanted to say thank you so much for your generosity, and joining us on Below the Radar. Lovely to speak with you, Lizzie.
Lizzie Borden 46:51
Oh, this was such a pleasure, and I would love to come to Vancouver. You know, actually, it would be great. I'd love to show all three films and have seminars. And actually one of the things I would love to do is read people's scripts in a seminar, or see films in an actual seminar situation, and actually talk to everybody, look at everyone's work, and comment on it, and work in that kind of situation, in a kind of intimate situation. Because I think I'm really, you know, one of the last things I wanted to say is intuition is much better than intellect, any day of the week. And I just feel like that's the one thing that I realized about the art world, that it's really important to trust your intuition, because one of the things that happens, is from the Clement Greenberg situation, which was all about, it was really an intellect that, "This is how something should be." People started breaking the rules, and that worked. And then the thing about screenwriting, what happened at a certain point after I went to movie jail, after the Harvey Weinstein thing, I was in movie jail for decades. But I realized that after I didn't go to film school, I had to learn the rules of screenwriting. So, I learned the rules of screenwriting, and I actually am a script consultant. Now, really under the radar, you know, I worked for some people just for, I'm not advertised, but I do it here and there. There are rules, absolute rules. I don't know how it happened, but Born in Flames, and Working Girls are actually three-act structures. I did not know that. [laughs] It so happened, that I felt the way, that's just how it felt right. But I feel that if you have an intuition, listen to it. And don't let people talk you out of it. If you feel something is right, obey that. And then the other thing too is, that also means that if you feel that something isn't working, even if it's your favorite scene in a movie, cut it out. And cutting is better, don't leave it long. That's my favorite advice: cut! Cut it!
Am Johal 48:56
Kill Your Darlings.
Lizzie Borden 48:57
Kill your darlings. Okay, take care. Thank you so much.
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Debbie C 49:02
Below the Radar is a knowledge democracy podcast created by 丁香园AV's Vancity Office of Community Engagement. Thanks for listening to our conversation with Lizzie Borden. Head to the shownotes to learn more about the resources mentioned in the show. We release episodes every Tuesday, so make sure to subscribe to Below the Radar on your podcasting app of choice, to make sure you never miss an episode. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll catch you next time on Below the Radar.
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